so i finally did my first SOTA activation last weekend, W4T/SU-001, been putting it off forever because i kept convincing myself i needed more gear or a better antenna or whatever. anyway packed up my KX2 and a 40m EFHW and hiked up saturday morning. wind was absolutely brutal up top, i mean i knew it would be exposed but not like THAT. spent like 20 minutes trying to get the wire up in a tree and the tree was basically horizontal from the wind lol. ended up just draping it over some rocks at a really terrible angle.

managed to get 4 contacts on 20m SSB before my hands got too cold to key properly, so it counts as an activation right? barely but yeah. didnt even try CW which is probably what i should have done, fewer letters to mess up with frozen fingers. already planning the next one though, gonna bring gloves next time which seems obvious in hindsight

4 contacts is 4 contacts man, activation is valid. ive done summits where i got exactly 4 and called it good and went home. the mountain doesnt care how many QSOs you make lol. also yeah CW on a cold summit is rough too, my sending goes to garbage when im cold and tired. some guys swear by a straight key for activations because there's less to go wrong mechanically but i cant send straight key for anything so that doesnt help me much.

the EFHW over rocks thing actually works better than you'd think sometimes. i activated a summit in colorado last fall, couldnt get anything up in a tree, basically had the wire running along the ground at like a 15 degree angle and still worked EU on 20m. antennas are magic and also terrible and i dont fully understand them. congrats on getting out there though, first one is always the hardest part